In a perfect world, every Championship Tour event ends with a final in pumping surf. It’s called the Dream Tour, after all, in part to give the surfing world a look at the best surfers on the planet, at the best waves on the planet.
Day one at the Margaret River Pro was one of the days where the swell and the contest window aligned to serve up some conditions worthy of that idea. It was good enough that organizers committed to getting as many heats off the board as possible — 28 in one day. We saw eight heats to get through Women’s Round 1, four heats to cross off the Men’s Round 1, and then another 16 to finish off Round 2 on the Men’s side, all in overlapping format.
It wasn’t all-time at Margaret River’s Main Break, but it was good. It was overhead to head high, which was enough size for surfers to put some A-class power surfing on display. The guy who got the most out of that recipe, at least as far as the judges were concerned, had an intriguing way of describing those conditions afterward.
“It’s so rippable,” Kanoa Igarashi said. “It’s kind of weird to call a six, eight-foot-wave rippable, but it had a really nice coping on it today. The wind’s still hanging in there, but I feel like Margarets at this size is almost like a big XL version of Lowers. In that sense, you just need a bigger board to suit the walls, but it’s such a rippable wave to surf. I had a really fun time out there. My first 20 minutes, I felt super lost and I wasn’t really clicking in. As soon as the priority switched over to our heat, I kind of was like, ok, cool, now I know what I’m doing, I know what I’m looking for. I was really happy to be able to adjust during the heat.”
If “a big, XL version of Lowers” doesn’t sound inviting I don’t know what does.
